♦ 
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Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 2 , 1910 . 
VOL. LXXIV —No. 14. 
No. 127 Franklin St., New York. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL. 
Copyright, 1910, by Forest <.nd Stream Publishing Co. 
George Bird Grinnell, President, 
Charles B. Reynolds, Secretary, 
Louis Dean Speir, Treasurer, 
127 Franklin Street, New York. 
THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL 
will be to studiously promote a healthful interest 
in outdoor recreation, and to cultivate a refined 
taste for natural objects. 
—Forest and Stream, Aug. 14, 1873. 
TIE UP THE DOGS. 
A bill now, before the General Court of the 
State of Massachusetts prohibits the running at 
large of dogs from March 1 until the beginning 
of the open season on grouse, quail and wood¬ 
cock. The measure is meeting with some bitter 
opposition, and, according to reports, especially 
from members of the fox hunting clubs of the 
State. 
It is unfortunate that there should be such 
a feeling. Among the worst enemies of all 
ground-nesting birds in thickly settled communi¬ 
ties is the self-hunting dog. We hear much 
about the domestic cat, which, when it has 
formed the habit of hunting away from the 
house, destroys great numbers of birds, but the 
self-hunting dog, when once this habit is fixed, 
probably does more harm than the domestic cat. 
He hunts further afield and more systemati¬ 
cally, and while not capturing so many birds, he 
destroys nests and eggs, and by repeatedly break¬ 
ing up nests, causes many a pair of birds to go 
through the season without rearing young. It 
may very well be that the scarcity of ruffed 
grouse for the last few years in sections where 
they were formerly more or less abundant, is 
largely due to the unceasing ravages of the self¬ 
hunting dog. 
It is interesting to watch, as sometimes may 
be done, the systematic manner in which a pair 
of dogs—and they often work in couples—will 
hunt out a hedgerow and pass from cover to 
cover. They may be found along brushy fences, 
in the woods of the uplands, or in the deepest 
swamps, traveling along by twos and threes, en¬ 
gaged in the work of destruction. 
> For days in succession these vagabond prowl¬ 
ers will persist on a hunt, thoroughly nosing out 
areas which may extend for many miles from 
their homes, and causing widespread destruction 
in the nesting season. The self-hunting dog is 
as crafty as his cousin, the fox. He is as care¬ 
ful to avoid observation, and for this reason his 
depredations when prowling are seldom wit¬ 
nessed, although the results may be obvious in 
a diminishing game supply. 
This being true, it seems no hardship that the 
farmer or fox hunter should be obliged to keep 
his dogs tied up.during the time when the birds 
are nesting. There seems no evident reason why 
a dog should ramble at will over land owned by 
another than his master, • any more than that a 
horse or a cow should do so. A law such as is 
proposed in Massachusetts is in line with other 
laws in existence on the statute books of many 
States, and almost this precise law is in force 
in certain counties of New York State. We 
should be glad to have fox hunters and others 
in Massachusetts think this matter over care¬ 
fully before opposing the bill. 
THE FUR SEAL BILL. 
On March 23 Senator Dixon,' of Montana, re¬ 
ported his fur seal bill to terminate the present 
lease of fur killing privileges on the Pribilof 
Islands in the Bering Sea, and authorizing the 
Secretary of Commerce and Labor to declare a 
close season on the islands. The bill, slightly 
amended so as to make the disposition of seals’ 
skins subject to any treaty governing the ques¬ 
tions which may be negotiated in the future, 
was passed by the Senate. 
In presenting the bill from the Committee on 
Conservation of National Resources, Senator 
Dixon pointed out that immediate action was 
necessary, because the existing law requires the 
leasing of the sealing privilege, and the present 
lease expires the first of next month. He called 
attention to the frightful diminution of the seals 
since 1867, when the United States purchased 
Alaska, and declared that in the opinion of ex¬ 
perts the seals, unless protected, would soon be 
entirely exterminated. 
FOR THE RISING GENERATION, WEST. 
Not long ago there appeared in a newspaper 
a cartoon which represented President Taft in 
the act of introducing the East, represented by 
an old man, to the West, figured as a young 
fellow with a broad hat and a loose handker¬ 
chief tied about his neck in cowboy style. 
The idea was a good one. East and West 
know too little of one another. A considerable 
proportion of the inhabitants of the farther 
West regard those people who reside near the 
Atlantic Coast as narrow-minded, self-satisfied 
and conceited. On the other hand, many 
people of the East—and above all, those who 
reside in large cities—believe that the West is 
still wild and woolly, and that its inhabitants 
are chiefly wild animals, Indians and cowboys. 
East and West are alike at work developing 
the resources of our country. For a genera¬ 
tion the hardy population of the West has been 
occupied in subduing the wilderness, while the 
East has been engaged in making still more 
productive industries long ago established. The 
two sections are but slightly differing products 
of the same sturdy Americanism. The East may 
well envy the West her pluck, her energy, her 
never-ending persistence, which has been so 
great a contributing factor to the prosperity 
of the East. 
Though young, the West has not forgotten 
the importance of higher education. Every¬ 
where are springing up new institutions of 
learning, and one of the newest of these was 
opened to students only last October. This is 
the Polytechnic Institute of Billings, Montana, 
founded by John D. Losekamp, a well-known 
business man and sportsman of that prosperous 
city. It has been opened in a small way with 
accommodations for about 200 students—only 
a small proportion of the thousands who ap¬ 
plied for information about it, when it was 
learned that the buildings were really in process 
of construction, and that class work was to 
begin in the autumn of 1909. Billings is the 
center of a great territory, which has been 
without special higher educational facilities, but 
now, as rapidly as the funds of the new school 
will admit, it will draw students from portions 
of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, 
students whose opportunities for education— 
and above all for special education—have hither¬ 
to been almost wholly lacking. 
Montana is to be congratulated on this new 
institution of learning, and we may feel sure 
that as time goes on generous gifts will be re¬ 
ceived by it from persons East and West, whose 
means permit them to contribute to so good an 
object. 
THE APPALACHIAN RESERVE. 
The House Committee on Agriculture by a 
vote of ten to seven last week ordered a favor¬ 
able report on the Weeks bill creating the White 
Mountain and Appalachian reserves. 
Readers of Forest and Stream have been 
familiar with the progress of this agitation 
which has been going on now for a number of 
years. The vote in the committee tends to show 
that as usual there will be opposition to the bill 
when it reaches the floor of the House. 
The bill sets aside $9,000,000 to be expended 
within the next five years in acquiring water¬ 
sheds on the navigable streams of the White 
Mountain and Appalachian regions. The sum 
of $200,000 is appropriated for protection against 
fire in the reserves. 
Persons interested in conservation should not 
relax their efforts to secure the passage of this 
important measure, and above all things the per¬ 
sons living in the regions to be affected should 
do all in their power to influence their Congress¬ 
men in the bill’s behalf. 
During the present year it is expected that 
new timber lands in Western Chihuahua will be 
placed within the reach of sportsmen who wish 
to hunt game in Mexico, through the opening of 
the new Madera-Terrazas railway extension. The 
region can be reached in a roundabout way from 
either Chihuahua or El Paso. 
